Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational

Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational, released in Europe under the name Everybody's Golf, was one of the titles that accompanied PlayStation Vita from the very start, and it quickly proved to be one of the best games in its entire library. Golf here is presented in a colorful, slightly cartoonish style with caricatured characters, but beneath the friendly surface lies a surprisingly deep game. The shot is set using the classic three-stage meter, where power and the accuracy of the ball strike are chosen separately, so there's still room for improvement even after hundreds of shots.

The player progresses through a series of tournaments, earns new clubs, outfits, and other characters, and learns to read the course, since wind, green slope, and the surface the ball lies on change the outcome significantly. Reading the break on the green, where you estimate the ball's path across uneven ground, is among the game's most tense moments. The courses are varied, from open coastal layouts to wooded, mountainous ones, and each demands different tactics. Visually, the game looks very clean and smooth, the music is cheerfully light, and the overall pace fits the handheld console perfectly, since a single round can be paused at any time. The characters also develop, gaining experience and changing their attributes, so the player gradually forms an attachment to one particular golfer and to the set of clubs that suits them best.

Critics received the game excellently and repeatedly noted that it was the ideal title for travel, one that could entertain for dozens of hours. The ability to measure yourself against other players through recorded results was also praised. Today, World Invitational is a classic for Vita owners, one they return to after years, because its charm lies in constant small improvement and in a relaxed mood that similar sports titles rarely offer today. It's also one of the few games where it doesn't matter that the player has no idea about golf, since everything essential is learned naturally during the first few tournaments.